It has left Dundalk’s dream of four titles in a row looking more unrealistic than ever.

While the home side certainly showed more attacking intent than their opponents, they simply did not do enough to win the game, failing to keep the pressure on after a bright start.

The high-profile departures of Andy Boyle, Daryl Horgan and Ronan Finn over the close-season may have led Derry to believe that they could close the 15-point gap which existed between them at the end of last year.

But they themselves lost Niclas Vemmelund to Dundalk and Conor McCormack to Cork and, having brought in Patrick McEleney last year, the Lilywhites brought in another ex-Derry favourite Michael Duffy for 2017.

When the sides met in Maginn Park in March, Derry had run out 3-1 winners — but, less than a week later, their captain Ryan McBride tragically passed away and his devastating loss had a lasting effect on his team-mates.

Recently, they have begun to regroup and came here on the back of a seven-match unbeaten run. The fact that they had won only two of those suggested they were struggling to put teams away.

Here, they were lucky not be out of this game inside the first eight minutes. But, once they survived that early onslaught, they began to get a foothold in the game and make life difficult for the home side.

In the second minute, Ger Doherty — possibly caught in the glare of the sun — seemed to react late when Paddy Barrett headed goalwards from a McEleney free-kick.

He got there just in time, at the expense of a corner.

Then, he was pressed into action by Dane Massey with the left-back hitting the ball sweetly with the outside of his foot. McEleney was following in but his effort was headed behind by Conor
McDermott. Duffy’s delivery troubled Ronan Curtis enough to concede another corner, but Derry dealt with that better and settled.

Their sitting midfield pair of Aaron McEneff and Nicky Low gave as good as they got, with Dundalk’s Chris Shields’ performance veering from excellent to erratic. He drove forward with purpose
regularly, but also squandered possession more than once.

However, their attacking trio of Curtis, Lukas Schubert and Barry McNamee struggled to offer any real support to lone frontman Nathan Boyle.

The sooner Rory Patterson is fit again, the better for Shiels.

As the game wore on, Derry’s ambition seemed to grow in tandem with Dundalk’s nerves with Vemmelund conceding a corner with a sliced clearance.

Then, in the 63rd minute, the visitors came close to breaking the deadlock. A sublime pass from McNamee cut open the Dundalk defence but keeper Gary Rogers got to it just before Curtis.

Then, from a Low corner, Benson had to clear off his line to spare Seán Hoare the embarrassment of an own goal after the ball had spun off his knee.

Vemmelund then did brilliantly to get across to block McNamee as he prepared to pull the trigger. At the other end, neither substitute Ciarán Kilduff nor Jamie McGrath could get on the end of Duffy’s cross.